One Day in the Wasteland
by Buddy1234
Summary: See what it's like to live in the wasteland for a day, or will he even be able to make it through the day?
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1: DAWN**

The crows, sitting on the now defunct telephone wires, caw for the morning sunrise. Its devastating golden beams of light stretch across the wastes with an unrelenting ferocity, driving the mutated cockroaches nearly as big as two pairs of shoes, back into their dark hiding, only to rise again during the night. On the side of the torn road, next to an abandoned nuclear powered car, lays a Raider, a lone, self satisfied, everyday Raider.

He puts his hand over his face trying to block out the glimmering rays of light, warming his body and blinding his sight, as he gets up he's both happy and surprised, not a single living thing in site and he has all of his equipment intact. As he pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket with his other hand and leans against the nuclear car, he puts his hand down, now that his eyes have adjusted to the light. Minutes go by as he keeps dragging on his cig and he can't help but feel like this day, even though how beautifully it had started, will end just as it always does, with less ammo and more radiation sickness.

In the wastes, it wasn't common for people to survive and even more uncommon for them to be survive reasonably well, especially alone. But the wastes had never bothered Daniel, people called him a Raider for what he had done in the past, for what they expect him to do, for what they fear he's going to do but the fact of the matter for him is, he's just trying to survive like everyone else, even if it meant that he had to do more drastic things to accomplish everyday life. It wasn't that he hated people that kept him away from the many small towns, small cities and plenty of other municipalities covering Maryland, or, at least all those places within the area surrounding Washington, no, for him it was something he deemed a higher importance, something no one but him would be able to fathom.

Daniels movement suddenly froze while he was digging through his pack looking for a decent breakfast, and his heart began to flutter briefly, as he had un-mistakenly just witnessed a Death-claw out on the overlook he was perched upon. In an instant he had dropped to the ground, fumbling through his gear to try and reach his rifle. Against a Death-claw, it would probably only annoy or agitate it, but it was the strongest defense he could grab in a moments notice such as this. He had now realized on the bottom of his pack he had a couple grenades stashed away but reaching for them now would surely catch the Death-claws attention.

If he had noticed it sooner he would've been able to hop over the car, run to the forward hill and be gone before the beast had even looked his way, and if it had seen him, it would've taken the beast a good amount of time to come up the hill, over the guard railing, and then up another hill. He had feared he would run into one of these eventually in his travels again, he had been scarred for life when he had witnessed one stumble into his own small town he once had lived in. It was unmerciful with its targets, children, the elderly, the sick; the demented creature even went after dogs and animals. It was a monstrous kind of creature, the ones only thought to exist in nightmares but oh, they existed alright. They stood over eight feet tall with talons as big as a mans forearm and horns twice as long as a bulls, and pale scraggy leather-like skin to top it all off. The only time he had ever witnessed or heard of someone killing one of these things was when it had attacked his town. His father had been one of the town's patrolmen and he and his father had been hiding as it ravaged the block where he lived. When the creature had thought it had mangled everyone with its claws, it began to twist and turn looking closely at the buildings and streets to see if anyone had managed to survive the trauma caused by its appendages. The creature had noticed a straggler on the streets and immediately diverted its attention and with that opening moment, Daniels father was already heading to his safe where he kept a single fragmentation grenade. That was the day Daniel learned the cruel lessons of the waste, no one was spared, not even his father, as he father marched out of his house and eyed the Death-claw without any sense of desperation in his character, and it was almost heroic if it had not been so in vain. Daniels father had the diverted Death-claws attention from the struggling women, and began to charge at Daniels father who had quickly pulled the pin on the grenade, and after it had reached him and grabbed him, pulling him straight off his feet into the air, his father yelled out:

"Run Daniel, run!"

But Daniel was too shocked by his fathers' actions to do anything, he had watched that monster butcher everyone he ever knew and now he saw his father run out to face it, it was like in one of his comic books where at the very end, the hero met face to face with the dragon or whatever fairy-tallish thing that harped on the hero throughout the story until the final match at the end where one would die and one would live. But this wasn't a comic book or a fairytale, such monsters do exist, but such hero's don't live to tell such tales, as with those last words that had come from his fathers mouth had finished, the grenade went off. The sight was abominable for such a young child to witness, his dad sacrificing himself, exploding in a violent and appalling manor with the Death-claw's entire upper half body being torn to pieces by the shrapnel and sudden explosion. But he had saved Daniel, a 13 year old boy.

The memories all flooding through his mind now, it had filled him with aggression and dismay but his aim never ceased from the Death-claws head, he only had one shot before the Death-claw would notice him and then come charging at him, which at that point, fighting would be futile.

A nerve struck in Daniels heart, like a dagger piercing his lungs as he saw the Death-claws head pivot straight to him, from over a hundred yards away. All the sense in his mind said to pull the trigger, but he seemed frozen, it was like he was 13 again in his old town when he had first seen it. But then, something strange happened, the Death-claw noticed him and gave him an aggressive look and then turned away, continuing to tread along it's own path. It was as if it had known of his intentions before hand and said to him with that single look:

"Are you sure you want to do what your about to do?"

Daniel now gasped for air, the whole ordeal seemed to stop his breathing for a while, it was quite an awful shock to start the day off with to say the very least, something that could've ended his life in a heartbeat. Now with calm nerves, and taking a sigh of relief, he leaned back against the car and had a quick quiver run through his body from all the adrenaline of the moment. He grabbed the instamash peeking out of his pack, grabbed some nearby foliage, and threw it into the makeshift fireplace from last night and lit it with the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

As the sun rises and Daniel finished his breakfast, he tries to make out what time it is, for if you remain too long in a single area, there's bound to be more things wander through, things that aren't as noticeable as Death-claws. It is noon and Daniel begins to repack his makeshift bed, food, his weapon, and his cooking instruments, he's not sure of which direction he wants to head but he knows not to follow the direction the of Death-claw. He takes out a dollar coin from his pocket, a trinket he had always kept with him, something his dad gave to him on his tenth birthday, which his dad also got on his tenth birthday and so on. He gave tails to the south, which crosses the path the Death-claw went, but not in the same direction, and north to heads, which would be up the hill on the other side of the road he was camped out on.

He tossed the coin up in the air and caught it as it came down to about his mid chest height then plopped it on the back of his other hand. Before he lifted his hand, he thought about what was in each direction. He'd been nearly all over the wastes now, except south, if he went back north he'd encounter more Waste Landers and settlements, which isn't a bad thing as he needs more resources such as water, as he wouldn't dare risk drinking from any natural reservoirs or anything such as water fountains or fire hydrants, he's heard way too many stories of people leisurely using those sources too often and turning into ghouls and getting radiation poisoning, he would only use those sources as last ditch efforts. But south, he wasn't too sure about what was south, he'd seen a good number of buildings, the remains of raised highways, some patches of dead trees, but the terrain was too rocky and too hilly to be able to tell much from a distance. If he went south, it would be a gamble.

He casually raised his hand, flipping his hand in a way to send the coin into the air catching it, putting it back into one of his zipper pockets, strapping his pack to his back, pulling out his .32 caliber pistol, with a somewhat uneasy look in his face. South it is.


	2. Chapter 2: Noon

**CHAPTER 2: NOON**

Daniel was a good 200 yards from his original campsite now, looking back now at the once scenic overlook. It had given him an eerie feeling when he was there that night, he had heard rumors of Vaults opening, but those rumors had to of been true as he'd seen plenty of vault dweller outfits, but he had never actually encountered a vault. But the whole time he was their that night, he could've sworn he thought he heard noises below him, not the chatter of people nor the treading of feet, but the sounds of gunfire muffled by the layers of rock and dirt. It didn't help the situation that there was a small opening, a crevice, in the rocky hill, one which seemed to mock him with mystery.

He forgot about the whole ordeal and just decided to move on, with his pistol in hand looking forward into the somewhat beautiful wastes. Even though it was a desolate, lawless place much like the Wild West, it didn't carry nearly the same appeal to him as that did.

Something seemed not quite right about this journey he was on, it was as if he was being followed, a feeling he couldn't shake yesterday, the day before, and now. Just a couple days ago he swore he heard the pitter-patter of shoes on pebbly soil right behind him, and there was enough rocky cover to permit a person to continue unnoticed behind him for so long. Whether it was self paranoia or something he might've misheard was as good as anyone's guess, but he didn't feel like letting his guard down, if he did, he just broke one of the rules to survival in the wastes.

It had been several minutes after his initial journey; the overlook was far beyond site now, covered by rock-ribbed hills and outcrops, he could see a good sized river running, curving along side about 12 meters away, it came right from the left side of him, abruptly turning and heading the direction he was in a jagged way.

It had only been until now that he realized some of the man made material littering the ground, it blended in so well with the soil and groundwork he had clearly mistaken it for some time. Sections of rusted barbed wire laid strewn about the ground, and as Daniel turned the corner, finally seeing some open space past all of the boulders and rocks, he saw a small shack. In front of the shack ran a small brook, giving it the undertone of a peaceful inhabitants, but none could be seen, in fact Daniel was damn sure it was abandoned, from the looks of the rusted sheet metal plates and broken furniture outside. The few nearby dead trees didn't help to lighten the mood either for him as the day had also been quiet and he had rarely had a day this quite without a few surprises up ahead.

Daniel surveyed his surroundings. To the right, a small cliff with crag jutting from the top of it, overshadowing the small shack, to the left, some open space with some barrels and tires laying randomly about and then another hill, and behind the shack, the brook as he'd noticed before but on the other side of it were some dead tree's and then a small vista before being overwhelmed with more rockbound highlands and slopes.

Before Daniel could finish surveying the rest of the numerous details of the surroundings, he heard some shuffling coming from inside the shack, there were various cracks and crevices that were quite obvious on the shack, but it was too dark to tell what was inside. Daniel decided to go on the safe side by putting his .32 away, so he could then pull out his 5.56 assault rifle.

He sat there for a good moment before shouting out:

"Hello, is their any one their!?"

Then the shuffling stopped and he heard a kind of muffled, fleshy sounding snort. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and began taking aim on the shack. From this distance, he would surely have a perfect shot at him, and with the various rocks strewn about it offered decent medium cover in case it turned into a gun fight. Daniel was sensing that something wasn't right, it wasn't the location of the shack, the time of day or the sudden halt in movement. He noticed some children's toys, lying about, a doll, a tricycle, even a little race car, and these things didn't look old; they looked recently used, about a week or two old at most.

His aim went right back to focusing on the door, his heart was beating, but not nearly as hard as when he had seen the Death-claw, but he was still nervous. Theirs plenty of wild life out in the wastelands that's dangerous and just because they aren't as dangerous as some, doesn't mean their still not dangerous.

All of a sudden the door burst open; a human shaped figure shambled out into the open about 3 feet from the shack. Its apparel was worn, remnants of old armor were visible at its soldiers and on its legs, bits of torn cloth and leather could be seen scattering it's greenish, veiny, decomposed looking body. Yup, there was no mistaking it, this was a Ghoul.

Daniel quickly focused on the ghoul and fired off three shots, 2 of the shots made contact and pushed the ghoul back a little but the other missed and hit the shack wall behind it. The ghoul now realizing what was happening launched its body forward, running in Daniels direction. Daniel kept firing, not in bursts anymore but fully automatic fire. Shots continued ringing out of the chamber, hitting and missing the ghoul, one in the leg, one in the arm, one in the other leg, 2 in the chest, he just kept firing until the ghoul was now almost on top of him, bloodied and oozing and unnatural liquid from it's wounds. He dropped his rifle and reached for his police baton he had holstered in his side pouch, he managed to get it out and extend it right as the ghoul had leaped for him. The ghoul tackled Daniel, although, the ghoul tackled him in a way that made Daniel spin around so the ghoul would end up on bottom, slamming against the hard pebbly ground. With one swift motion Daniel raised the police baton into the air, and came down with a fierceness that almost made the ghoul realize its own death was before it. The police baton smacked against the skull of the ravaged ghoul, cracking sounds from its skull broke through the skin, creating the raw sound of snapping and crunching as the thick ooze, which would be this atrocity's "blood", spilled out over the dirt and rock.

The annihilated body of the ghoul laid there, as a heaping pile of ripped and bruised flesh in a pool of its own disgusting liquids. Daniel got up from his knee's, whipped the baton into the air to try and clean some of the blood off it without dirtying his clothes, then placed it back into his side pouch. He walked away from the body, breathing slightly heavy, picking up his rifle, and then continuing to the shack to see if there was anything left to pick over.

Inside, Daniel discovered the horrors of what had happened. Two adults and two children lay on the floor of the shack, dead. Their bodies had bite marks and chunks of flesh missing all over. He dropped to his knees and could only feel sorrow for them. For Daniel, its times like these that he wishes he could somehow show the people who label him that he has a heart, he has some morals, and he doesn't just go around slaughtering people. Its times like these that he wishes he had never killed those innocents and was never branded as a raider.

Getting back up to his feet, cautiously, he turned and exited the shack. He wasn't just about to ransack this place, not after what had already happened to them, he wasn't going to deepen the depravity of the situation. But suddenly, he had a soft idea, an idea that he felt, would lighten his heart. He walked over to the body of the dead young boy and took out his dollar coin. Looking at it one last time, grasping it in his hand, feeling it's rough, metallic surface, then putting it to his chest and saying a few words, he put the coin in the boy's right pocket. With that act, purely out of self sorrow, he felt a feeling of relief come over him, a feeling of unburdening, for within those few seconds, Daniel was genuinely happy.


End file.
